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3rd party articles is how the current discussion came about. Still waiting for Princess to come clean and release a statement. Not sure why they thought a Guinness Record for pizza eating is newsworthy (it’s not) but not the abandonment of a much touted amenity on their newest ship isn’t.

I've noticed that the App carries 2 photos. There is the photo that you uploaded and is used as your profile pic which shows under the Profile tab and is visible to other passengers under Shipmates, cabin door, and ship portals. Then there is the Security Photo that shows under the Travel Checklist. This photo automatically shows the photo that ship security took of you and uploaded on their end. You technically don't have to upload a real photo of yourself on the App. I don't use a real photo as a Profile photo and nothing has been said. Security will take a photo of you for ship purposes (this is the photo that populates on the crew tablets and devices) and once you've cruised with Princess for the first time post App release the photo will remain in the Security Photo section until they take a new photo of you.

Princess has to try somehow. If they do drastic changes too fast, they risk alienating the old blood cruisers who will move on to other lines. I like prefer X myself, but Princess pricing is hard to beat and Princess offers 20 day or longer cruises that I’ve taken a liking to. It’s a moot point now. Park19 never materialized. Just goes to show what a circus show Princess upper management is at the moment. Between the delayed announcements of the cancellations of the first 2 inaugurals, the cabin category changes, and now this, they utterly botched the release of the Sun Princess.

It's just all perception and how much an individual values something that is not valuable. Believe me if it had true value, and Princess would not be giving it to you for free. They would go out of business.

The Elite cabin mini bar is hardly a drink. It just mini bottles of certain types of liquors. As for discounting drink packages out of Texas, that has nothing to do with loyalty.

Food is food. You already paid for it in the cruise fare. The buffet is usually open when the PE Lounge is open and the IC is always open. There's only one ship homeported in Galveston for only part of the year. If you can't wait for a few hours for a drink, I'd look into getting help for alcoholism.

Sailed on the Enchanted last October/November in Europe. At that time, I was told the ship let crew go because they weren't up to snuff, so the ship was understaffed, and their replacements weren't coming until the ship crossed the pond to Fort Lauderdale in December. Not good to hear a lot of staff is still just going through the motions.

The PES Lounge doesn't entitle those availing of drinks. It would make more sense to say that the PES Lounge doesn't add any loyalty benefits because the base cruise fare already includes food. The cabin mini bar benefit for Elites holds less value for Elites with packages because they already pre-paid for their drinks.

Nope. Anytime ShoreEx touches a shore excursion onboard it affects only your folio. For example, if an excursion you booked gets cancelled, it won't get credited back to you CC; it will be credited to your folio as REFUNDABLE OBC. If you don't use it before the end of your cruise, you will be mailed a check after finance settles your folio. ShoreEx can give you refundable OBC as a credit if the Shore Excursion you booked dropped in price once onboard. We booked a city tour of Cartagena on Panama Canal cruise this past January using non-refundable OBC. The tours weren't selling very well and they had too many time slots and not enough takers. The price onboard decreased $20 per person what we "paid" pre-cruise and ShoreEx refunded us the difference as refundable OBC.

Not sure what P&O's schtick about only allowing Brits onboard. Another weird thing about P&O my British friends have told me is that travel insurance with P&O is mandatory. If you don't purchase the travel insurance directly with P&O, you have to provide proof of 3rd party travel insurance covering a predetermined amount or you will be denied boarding.

Also remember that RCI and X are only 2 lines and their business are more a like than they are different. The difference is really only the demographic. CCL has many lines too many differing lines. If P&O were, for example, to have reciprocal benefits with the other lines, it would be beneficial to the Brits who can book Princess. It would not be beneficial to Americans because they really can't book P&O because there's only one agency has the rights to book Americans onto P&O.

It would not be a good idea for Princess to delay the Star in 2025. It's already delayed by a few months as it is. It has 2 Med cruises (a 10 and a 7 day) before the the Transatlantic. If they delay the inaugural, Princess will have to sail an TA empty to reposition her to the Caribbean. The cruising season in Europe ends at the end of October so it wouldn't make sense to keep the Star there into November and December. TAs are very hard to get to capacity as it is; there are usually several price drops before and after final payment. While cruises over Thanksgiving and Christmas tend to go full, cruises immediately before Thanksgiving and Christmas are hard to fill because people spending those holidays at home want to use that time to prep. I will say though that given that the Sun was such a cluster, I wouldn't be surprised.

Every other cruise line under the CCL umbrella leaves the cruise card at staterooms. Royal Caribbean does this as well. It's more efficient because the check-in agents aren't looking for a needle in haystack trying to find cruise cards at check-in. People board using a QR code the first time they embark. Princess has this capability because their App creates a Boarding Pass with a QR code and instructs people to have the QR code ready. Except in Princess' case, the Boarding Pass and QR code are completely superfluous because they are never used.

Don't sweat the QR code. No one will ever ask to see it check-in. Just show up with proper documentation and you will be allowed to check-in and board.

On a different note, I think this is a win for RCCL and X. It gives incentive for passengers to cruise the other brand. It's especially favorable for cruisers who move from RCCL to X because X cruises cost more which is more revenue. I do see it being a problem for CCL because Princess also counts cruise segments. Other brands under the CCL umbrella do not. We all know some people plot ways to move up with Captain's Circle. It was pretty evident in the thread about the loyalty acceleration thread.

I think you misunderstood the reciprocity that's currently being offered between RCCL and X loyalty programs. There is status matching, but you earn points with loyalty program of the cruise line sailed only. The loyalty programs are still separate entities and the points earned do not comingle in a combined loyalty program. The loyal programs were never combined.

That’s actually quite long. In Europe, you can be onboard in 10 to 15 minutes when there’s no line that’s having to pick up Medallions. Something is wrong in Vancouver and many US Ports.

Most people don't think to arrive later rather than earlier like we do.

In Vancouver, if you don't wait in a mile long queue to check-in, you'll be waiting in a mile long queue for security and immigration. The Canada Place is a cluster and I'm not sure why Vancouver thought it would be a good idea to mix a cruise terminal and a convention centre. The check-in halls are the exhibition halls.

Why am I not surprised? The Sun Princess was a day late and a dollar short from the get go. I hope Princess already has something lined up for that area on Star coming out in a little over a year.

I'm glad you were able to enjoy the excursion for what it was. If you haven't already, I hope you get a chance to experience more time in Paris by doing a land trip. The Princess excursion from Le Havre doesn't even take a small bite of what Paris has to offer. You literally spend more time on a bus than walking the streets, living, breathing, and experiencing Paris. There are certain cities that can be seen in a day, but Paris isn't one of them. If you choose the excursion to Paris with the Seine River Cruise, it looks like the free time has been eliminated from the itinerary. I highly recommend visiting Mont Saint Michel. Really interesting place that can be fully experienced in a day. This really waters down the experience, but it kind of reminds me of a historical Harry Potter land.

When I've done refares for EZAir, my CVP has been able to request for the refund after I initiated the request. Once that was done, the refund appeared on my CC in 2 days. The generic Customer Service number is useless. It could also be that because the refund is so large, it requires higher approval in the hierarchy, which would make it take longer.

Another reason for Princess to stop Medallion shipment pre-cruise. It creates unnecessary customer service issues. If everyone just picked up at the port or if they were waiting in the cabins, this would be a non-issue. People are going to bash about how this would slow down check-in. My question is why are the European check-in agents so much more efficient than their counterparts elsewhere?. In Europe (Southampton, Barcelona, Civitavecchia, and Piraeus), picking up Medallions adds but a minute, maybe less, to the check-in process. If the Medallions were in people's cabins, it would add zero extra time to the check-in process. Anyways, have a good cruise!

Royal Caribbean has admitted that bigger isn’t necessarily better with Project Discovery. Under this project they will commission and build smaller ships to replace their aging fleet of smaller ships. How big, how many, and when remains the question. The Caribbean is one place where ultra mega ships are port viable; locals there don’t seem to mind and the piers have been retrofitted to handle their size. Princess is late to the game when it comes to mega ships. It only goes to my theory that Princess is follower not a trendsetter in the industry. The Star’s debut in 2025 is the last ship that’s currently in the books for Princess. Under the CCL umbrella a new yet to be named Excel Class for Carnival is debuting in 2027. It’s the last new build for CCL for now. It might be a while until Princess sees new ship and we can only speculate on the size, but given Princess’ past pattern of releasing multiple copies of the same class ship, it might be another Sphere Class. Having said that the Grand, Coral, and Island will be approaching 30 years old by that time. Personally wouldn’t mind if Princess built something to the likes of Celebrity’s Edge Class. They are a manageable size and very contemporary. Then, again Princess doesn’t have a track record of being forward thinking and trendsetting.

This! The Caribbean is easy money and family friendly. It's why RC and Carnival can sail there year round and sail ships that are full. IMO, Princess is late to the game when it comes to the Caribbean. The Enchanted is in the Caribbean this summer and having been monitoring the sailings, they are going out full and the lowest fares have been in the $900s.